I Like Hot Cocoa

Kate's NYC Weekend

I am a little late in blogging this, but Kate came to visit for the weekend of Nov. 16, and we packed the two days full of stuff. Here, proof in pics.

She's going to kill me for posting two pics of her eating, but that's ok. We went to a Malaysian restaurant for dinner in Chinatown. . .

We ate at the nothing-but-peanut-butter-sandwiches restaurant in the West Village for lunch--Kate had the Elvis, of course--a sandwich that consisted of peanut butter, bananas, honey, and bacon. Mmmmm. . .

We went to the Museum of Natural History to check out the always-amazing butterfly exhibit. . .

Kate buys a souvenir for Matt from the museum gift shop. . .

And we saw a jovial Bob Saget in Times Square in front of the Drowsy Chaperone (in which he's starring right now) theater, supporting the striking stagehands.

A good was time had by all. :-)

Busy Busy

SOOOO-freakin'-BUSY!!!!

A lot has been going on, needless to say. Grad school has me going mach 3 at all times. Very little sleep going on over here. It's beginning to pay off, I think. I got my first freelance story published in Chelsea Now. Hooray! Hopefully there will be many more clips to come. I'm working on a story now that I hope will end up in a paper somewhere. I will link it if it does.

Gram came into the city yesterday and we had dinner at Carnegie Deli, which was appropriate, as we went to Carnegie Hall for a show after. Brian Stokes Mitchell, Mr. King-O-Broadway himself, gave a concert to benefit the Actors Fund. There were a bunch of guests, including Reba McEntire and Phylicia Rashad, who were both great.

In the midst of my grad-school busy-ness, Mike came to visit for the weekend, which was a blast. We went to see Chicago (which is now starring Brian McKnight, who knew?), ran into some Albany peeps in the Village, chilled in Central Park, etc.

Mike and I had Ethiopian for lunch on Sunday.

Oh How I Love My Sushi

Lunch with Kim in Portland.
I love it I love it I love it I love it.
I could eat it forever.

Weekend Wrap-Up

(I'll start from Thursday since I haven't blogged in a while.)

On Thursday we went to the opening of a new club called Ballinger's downtown. It's a very large, well-decorated club with various floors and a huge outdoor patio, which will be great for the summer. Unfortunately, the building it's in--and the location of the building--has not proven to have much success in terms of attracting a crowd. It's perched on the corner of a street on a steep hill, and there's very little (if any) foot traffic there. We'll see how it goes. The opening was fun, though--we had some drinks and wandered and mingled. Then we went to Justin's for some late-night grub.

Here's a photo of some corner seating at Ballinger's.

Friday was dining-guide production day, which is always a merry ride to hell on wheels. Once that was done, I went to the gym and then home to relax for a little while before going to hang out with Nate and his brother Trevor, who was in town from Buffalo to hang for the weekend. Mike joined us later, and we went to the Fountain for a yummy midnight snack.

Saturday was spent sleeping for the most part--then a nice long walk in Washington Park with coffee because the weather was beeeautiful. Saturday night mimicked Friday a bit in that it resulted, ultimately, in me, Nate, Trevor and Mike eating pizza again. This time it was at DeJohn's, and the ceiling began raining on us before we left. (We learned that the dishwasher on the second floor was the cause of the downpour.)

On Sunday, we left the house at around 12:30 on a mission to find lunch. A stroke of genius pointed us in the direction of Cohoes to get some "real Texas barbecue." Unfortunately, it turned out that the BBQ joint was closed on Sundays, as is everything else in Cohoes, we came to realize. We finally ended up at Bob's Diner in Watervliet and we ate a very average but satisfying lunch. Later, we took a motorcycle ride up to the mall and walked around a bit, contemplating dinner, which we had at Moe's. It was my first time eating at Moe's, and it actually was pretty good. The rest of the night was spent relaxing and watching the tube.

Here's Mike having a grand time washing all the bird crap off his car on Sunday. :-)

In conclusion, a very good weekend was had by all.

AAN Conference in DC

The weekend before last, I again attended the AAN East conference in DC; I caught up with some old friends, attended all the seminars, learned a whole lot and reviewed what I already knew, and so on and so on. But I also did a couple more notable things--I went and toured the International Spy Museum, which was wonderful and fascinating, and I could have spent all day in there, but we were able to spend the morning there before we needed to get back to the hotel for the afternoon seminars. Also, I had some superb meals while I was there. Really, every night we had fabulous food. But the staff and I went to eat at a restaurant called Tenpenh on Pennsylvania Avenue on our last night there, and it was so delicious--the meal was probably on my Top 10 list of favorite meals ever. I had the five-spice chili tea rubbed beef tenderloin with a kimchee-noodle cake and Korean chili Hollandaise sauce. And that was just the entree! I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. Here, for your viewing enjoyment, is a pic of our pre-dinner cocktails.

. . . and here's dessert--spicy peanut and hot fudge sundae with flourless chocolate cake, ice cream and peanut butter cream. Mmmmm.

Three of My Favorite Places

1. The Spectrum
2. The Bookhouse
3. Zabar's


What's your favorite place?

TGIF

This weekend, the plan is to go to see Gram for Rosh Hashanah. (Happy Rosh Hashanah by the way, for all you people who are into that sorta thing.) I'm totally just in it for the brisket and matzoh ball soup. (Just kidding, Gram, don't worry! . . . But there will be rugelach and chopped liver, right? *wink*)

Tonight, a much-needed pow-wow with Nate. Followed by a cocktail or two.

Temptation

There's one of those huge cookie-cake things in the editorial office in celebration of our new staff writer's birthday. I've been pretty good about eating healthily and avoiding bad things lately. Like huge cookie-cake things. And now one is in the office, calling my name. For the record, it's nearly impossible for me to avoid this giant cookie. I love sweets--my sweet tooth is about the size of the Atlantic. And of course, cookies are my favorite. So far, so good--I haven't given in. I just wanted to share my diet angst.

(Post) Weekend Report

Wow, I'm sleepy. I don't get it. I was asleep by 10:30 last night, awake at 6:30 this morning, gym for an hour, one cup of coffee for the day--my usual routine. So why am I so tired?


This weekend was full of lovely things.

Friday night I had dinner with friends and then went to Paranoid Social Club at Revolution Hall in Troy for a night of rock. It was great. Those guys are FABulous every single time I see them.

Saturday I went to River Street in Troy to pretend to browse for antiques for a scene piece I'm writing for this week's paper. Saturday night: dinner at this new place called Avenue A (the name of which can only conjure images of Avenue Q for me), where I had some excellent Korean steak. Then to the Egg for a hip-hop dance revue, which rocked as well.

Yesterday I went to Kristie's old house to see her mom and brother-in-law, Steve, and little niece Maeve (whose hair is getting soooo long!), and to pick up a very nice table that was unwanted by them but desperately needed by me for my dining room. That was followed by regular Sunday activities: grocery shopping, cooking for the week, cleaning. And I had a nice afternoon nap with Asa while watching The Labyrinth.

My brother has reported to me today that our landlord came and fixed our garbage disposal, which has been broken for almost a week--a situation that was really bumming me out. So I'm extremely pleased about that.

Off to find some food. . .

Work Work Work

I hate that I have to work today. Hate it! I want to be home making hazelnut rugalach! (I was planning on making it yesterday--I bought ingredients and everything--but found I was without extra-fine granulated sugar, damnit.) Oh well, there is way too much to do to make sure the paper comes out this week to be home today. We have tomorrow off, and I'll be taking my Little Sister to the Fourth of July festivities at the plaza. See you there?

Tuesdays With Travis

Had dinner in Washington Park with Trav last night. We tried the new vegetarian place on Lark Street, called Peas & Beans, and it was yummy (for you local folk who haven't been there yet, it's right by where Shades of Green used to be). Trav had the veggie falafel and I had organic rice and beans, of which they gave me enough--for $3.50-- for two meals. So we recommend it, if you were curious. Then we went to the M'Land office so I could be a guinea pig for his presentation for the Princeton Review, for whom he'll be instructing an SAT prep course. Good luck Trav, you'll do great!

FUNNY Rotten Scoundrels!

Oh my god, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels could very likely be the funniest thing I've ever seen. And I've seen some funny things in my time. In addition to making the audience hoot and howl, Jonathan Pryce and Norbert Leo Butz (who just won a Tony for his role) kept cracking each other up, which made watching them even funnier. It was absolutely, perfectly hysterical.

And the Darwin exhibit at the Museum of Natural History was great--if you go, allow yourself a LOT of time to make your way through the exhibit. An hour minimum, I'd say. There's a lot of information to absorb and lots to see. Including some giant turtles and iguananas. Which, I now know, are both pretty yummy as dinner.

I added to my book collection this weekend. *Cringe!* I'm so bad. I keep promising myself the madness will stop! I think I'm really going to have to break down and buy another bookcase. This weekend I acquired two T.C. Boyle books and The Ghost of Hannah Mendes by Naomi Ragen (thanks, Gram!!); while in the city we also bought The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, Newjack by Ted Conover, and The Jewish Kitchen by Clarissa Hymen (this one in particular is super, because this book will actually teach me how to make hazelnut rugelach! I can't even tell you how exciting this is).

We had a nice, respectable kosher lunch at Fine & Shapiro in the Upper West Side, and dinner at Ollie's. Yum. Till next time. . .

It is Really Scary. . .

. . . how excited I get knowing that a half-pint of Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream and an episode of American Idol are both waiting for me when I get home tonight.

Especially since what I need to be doing is not watching TV, but reading, oh, the second half of my book club book for my book club meeting tomorrow. (!)